Anahuac written by Edward Burnett Tylor
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Edward Burnett Tylor >> Anahuac
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The details made out at present on the calendar are as follows:--the
summer and winter solstices, the spring and autumn equinoxes, the two
passages of the Sun over the zenith of Mexico, and some dates which
possibly belong to religious festivals. The dates of the two
zenith-transits are especially interesting; for, as they vary with the
latitude, they must have been made out by actual observation in Mexico
itself, and not borrowed from some more civilised people in the distant
countries through which the Mexicans migrated. This fact alone is
sufficient to prove a considerable practical knowledge of astronomy.
Besides this, the Mexican cycle of fifty-two years seems to be
indicated in the circle outside the signs of days, and also the days in
the priestly year of 260 days; but to make these numbers, we must allow
for the compartments supposed to be hidden by the projecting rays of
the sun.
The arrangement of the Mexican cycle of fifty-two years is very
curious. They had four signs of years, _tochtli, acatl, tecpatl_, and
_calli_,--_rabbit, canes, flint_, and _house_; and against these signs
they ranged numbers, from 1 to 13, so that a cycle exactly corresponds
to a pack of cards, the four signs being the four suits, thirteen of
each. Now, any one would suppose that in making such a reckoning, they
would first take one suit, count _one, two, three_, &c. in it, up to
13, and then begin another suit. This is not the Mexican idea, however.
Their reckoning is 1 _tochtli_, 2 _acatl_, 3 _tecpatl_, &c., just as it
may be made with the cards thus: ace of hearts, two of diamonds, 3 of
spades, 4 of clubs, 5 of hearts, 6 of diamonds, and so on through the
pack. The correspondence between the cycle of 52 years, divided among 4
signs, and our year of 52 weeks, divided among 4 seasons, is also
curious, though as entirely accidental as the resemblance to the pack
of cards, for the Mexican week (if we may call it so) consisted of 5
days instead of 7, which to a great extent nullifies the comparison.
The reckoning of days is still more cumbrous. It consists of the days
of the week written in succession from 1 to 13, underneath these the 20
signs of days, and underneath these again another series of 9 signs; so
that each day was distinguished by a combination of a number and two
signs, which combination could not belong to any other day.
The date of the year at the top of the calendar is 13 _acatl_ (13
canes), which stands for 1479, 1427, 1375, 1323, and so on, subtracting
52 years each time. Now, why was this year chosen? It was not the
beginning of a cycle, but the 26th year; and so, in ascertaining the
meaning of the dates on the calendar, allowance has to be made for six
days which have been gained by the leap-years only being adjusted at
the end of the cycle; but this certainly offers no advantage whatever;
and if an arbitrary date had been chosen to start the calendar with, of
course it would have been the first year of a cycle. The year may have
been chosen in commemoration of the foundation of Mexico or
Tenochtitlan, which historians give as somewhere about 1324 or 1325.
The sign 13 _acatl_ would stand for 1323. It is more likely that the
date merely refers to the year in which the calendar was put up. As
such a massive and elaborate piece of sculpture could only belong to
the most flourishing period of the Aztec empire, the year indicated
would be 1279, nine years before the building of the great pyramid
close by.
Baron Humboldt's celebrated argument to prove the Asiatic origin of the
Mexicans is principally founded upon the remarkable resemblance of this
system of cycles in reckoning years to those found in use in different
parts of Asia. For instance, we may take that described by Hue and
Gabet as still existing in Tartary and Thibet, which consists of one
set of signs, _wood, fire, earth_, &c., combined with a set of names of
animals, _mouse, ox, tiger_, &c. The combination is made almost exactly
in the same way as that in which the Aztecs combine their signs and
numbers, as for instance, the year of the fire-pig, the iron-hare, &c.
If these were simple systems of counting years, or even if, although
difficult, they had some advantages to offer, we might suppose that two
different races in want of a system to count their years by, had
devised them independently. But, in fact, both the Asiatic and the
Mexican cycles are not only most intricate and troublesome to work, but
by the constant liability to confound one cycle with another, they lead
to endless mistakes. Hue says that the Mongols, to get over this
difficulty, affix a special name to all the years of each king's reign,
as for instance, "the year Tao-Kouang of the fire-ram;" apparently not
seeing that to give the special name and the number of the year of the
reign, and call it the 44th year of Tao-Kouang, would answer the same
purpose, with one-tenth of the trouble.
Not only are the Mexican and Asiatic systems alike in the singular
principle they go upon, but there are resemblances in the signs used
that seem too close for chance.[20] The other arguments which tend to
prove that the Mexicans either came from the Old World or had in some
way been brought into connexion with tribes from thence, are
principally founded on coincidences in customs and traditions. We must
be careful to eliminate from them all such as we can imagine to have
originated from the same outward causes at work in both hemispheres,
and from the fact that man is fundamentally the same everywhere. To
take an instance from Peru. We find the Incas there calling themselves
"Child of the Sun," and marrying their own sisters, just as the
Egyptian kings did. But this proves nothing whatever as to connexion
between the two people. The worship of the Sun, the giver of light and
heat, may easily spring up among different people without any external
teaching; and what more natural, among imperfectly civilized tribes,
than that the monarch should claim relationship with the divinity? And
the second custom was introduced that the royal race might be kept
unmixed.
Thus, when we find the Aztecs burning incense before their gods, kings,
and great men, and propitiating their deities with human sacrifices, we
can conclude nothing from this. But we find them baptizing their
children, anointing their kings, and sprinkling them with holy water,
punishing the crime of adultery by stoning the criminals to death, and
practising several other Old World usages of which I have already
spoken. We must give some weight to these coincidences.
Of some of the supposed Aztec Bible-traditions I have already spoken in
no very high terms. There is another tradition, however, resting upon
unimpeachable evidence, which relates the occurrence of a series of
destructions and regenerations of the world, and recalls in the most
striking manner the Indian cosmogony; and, when added to the argument
from the similarity of the systems of astronomical notation of Mexico
and Asia, goes far towards proving a more or less remote connection
between the inhabitants of the two continents.
There is another side to the question, however, as has been stated
already. How could the Mexicans have had these traditions and customs
from the Old World, and not have got the knowledge of some of the
commonest arts of life from the same source? As I have said, they do
not seem to have known the proper way of putting the handle on to a
stone-hammer; and, though they used bronze, they had not applied it to
making such things as knives and spear-heads. They had no beasts of
burden; and, though there were animals in the country which they
probably might have domesticated and milked, they had no idea of
anything of the kind. They had oil, and employed it for various
purposes, but had no notion of using it or wax for burning. They
lighted their houses with pine-torches; and in fact the Aztec name for
a pine-torch--_ocotl_--was transferred to candles when they were
introduced.
Though they were a commercial people, and had several substitutes for
money--such as cacao-grains, quills of gold-dust, and pieces of tin of
a particular shape, they had no knowledge of the art of weighing
anything, but sold entirely by tale and measure. This statement, made
by the best authorities, their language tends to confirm. After the
Conquest they made the word _tlapexouia_ out of the Spanish "peso," and
also gave the meaning of weighing to two other words which mean properly
_to measure_ and _to divide equally_. Had they had a proper word of
their own for the process, we should find it. The Mexicans scarcely ever
adopted a Spanish word even for Spanish animals or implements, if they
could possibly make their own language serve. They called a sheep an
_ichcatl_, literally a "_thread-thing_," or "_cotton_": a gun a
"_fire-trumpet_:" and sulphur "_fire-trumpet-earth_." And yet, a people
ignorant of some of the commonest arts had extraordinary knowledge of
astronomy, and even knew the real cause of eclipses,[21] and represented
them in their sacred dances.
Set the difficulties on one side of the question against those on the
other, and they will nearly balance. We must wait for further evidence.
Our friend Don Jose Miguel Cervantes, the President of the
Ayuntamiento, took us one day to see the great prison of Mexico, the
Acordada. As to the prison itself, it is a great gloomy building, with
its rooms and corridors arranged round two courtyards, one appropriated
to the men, the other to the women. A few of the men were at work
making shoes and baskets, but most were sitting and lying about in the
sun, smoking cigarettes and talking together in knots, the young ones
hard at work taking lessons in villainy from the older hands; just the
old story.
Offenders of all orders, from drunkards and vagrants up to highway
robbers and murderers, all were mixed indiscriminately together. But we
should remember that in England twenty years ago it was usual for
prisons to be such places as this; and even now, in spite of model
prisons and severe discipline, the miserable results of our
prison-system show, as plainly as can be, that when we have caught our
criminal we do not in the least know how to reform him, now that our
colonists have refused him the only chance he ever had.
It is bad enough to mix together these men under the most favourable
circumstances for corrupting one another. Every man must come out worse
than he went in; but this wrong is not so great as that which the
untried prisoners suffer in being forced into the society of condemned
criminals, while their trials drag on from session to session, through
the endless technicalities and quibbles of Spanish law.
We made rather a curious observation in this prison. When one enters
such a place in Europe, one expects to see in a moment, by the faces
and demeanour of the occupants, that most of them belong to a special
criminal class, brought up to a life of crime which is their only
possible career, belonging naturally to police-courts and prisons,
herding together when out of prison in their own districts and their
own streets, and carefully avoided by the rest of society. You may know
a London thief when you see him; he carries his profession in his face
and in the very curl of his hair. Now in this prison there was nothing
of the kind to be seen. The inmates were brown Indians and half-bred
Mexicans, appearing generally to belong to the poorest class, but just
like the average of the people in the streets outside. As my companion
said, "If these fellows are thieves and murderers, so are our servants,
and so is every man in a serape we meet in the streets, for all we can
tell to the contrary." There was positively nothing at all peculiar
about them.
If they had been all Indians we might have been easily deceived.
Nothing can be more true than Humboldt's observation that the Indian
face differs so much from ours that it is only after years of
experience that a European can learn to distinguish the varieties of
feature by which character can be judged of. He mistakes peculiarities
which belong to the race in general for personal characteristics; and
the thickness of the skin serves still more to mask the expression of
their faces. But the greater part of these men were Mexicans of mixed
Indian and Spanish blood, and their faces are pretty much European.
The only explanation we could give of this identity of character inside
the prison and outside is not flattering to the Mexican people, but I
really believe it to be true. We came to the conclusion that the
prisoners did not belong to a class apart, but that they were a
tolerably fair specimen of the poorer population of the table-lands of
Mexico. They had been more tempted than others, or they had been more
unlucky, and that was why they were here.
There were perhaps a thousand prisoners in the place, two men to one
woman. Their crimes were--one-third, drunken disturbance and vagrancy;
another third, robberies of various kinds; a fourth, wounding and
homicides, mostly arising out of quarrels; leaving a small residue for
all other crimes.
Our idea was confirmed by many foreigners who had lived long in the
country and had been brought into personal contact with the people.
Every Mexican, they said, has a thief and a murderer in him, which the
slightest provocation will bring out. This of course is an
exaggeration, but there is a great deal of truth in it. The crimes in
the prison-calendar belong as characteristics to the population in
general. Highway-robbery, cutting and wounding in drunken brawls, and
deliberate assassination, are offences which prevail among the
half-white Mexicans; while stealing is common to them and the pure
Indian population. We noticed several instances of bigamy, a crime
which Mexican law is very severe upon. As far as we could judge by the
amount of punishment inflicted, it is a greater crime to marry two
women than to kill two men. In one gallery are the cells for criminals
condemned to death, but the occupants were allowed to mix freely with
the rest of the prisoners, and they seemed comfortable enough.
Everybody knows how much in England the condition of a prisoner depends
on the disposition of the governor in office and the system in vogue
for the moment. The mere words of his sentence do not indicate at all
what his fate will be. He comes in--under Sir John--to light labour,
much schoolmaster and chaplain, and the expectation of a
ticket-of-leave when a fraction of his time is expired. All at once Sir
James supersedes Sir John, and with him comes in a regime of hard work,
short rations, and the black hole. If he had been "in" a month sooner,
he would have been "out" now with those more fortunate criminals, his
late companions.
Things ought not to be so in England, but we need hardly wonder at
their being still worse in Mexico in this respect as in all others.
There have been twenty changes of government in ten years, and
sometimes extreme severity has been the rule, which may change at a
day's notice into the extreme of mildness. In Santa Ana's time the
utmost rigour of the law prevailed. Our friends in the Calle Seminario,
as they came back from their morning's ride in the Paseo, had to pass
through the great square; and used to see there, day after day, pairs
of garotted malefactors sitting bolt upright in the high wooden chairs
they had just been executed in, with a frightful calm look on their
dead faces.
For the last year or so all this had ceased, and there had scarcely
been an execution. It seems that one principal reason of this lenity is
that the government is too weak to support its judges; and that the
ministers of justice are actually intimidated by threats mysteriously
conveyed to witnesses and authorities, that, if such or such a criminal
is executed, his friends have sworn to avenge his death, and are on the
look-out, every man with his knife ready. To political offences the
same mercy is extended. In the early times of the war of independence,
and for years afterwards, when one leader caught an officer on the
other side, he had him tried by a drum-head court-martial, and shot.
Since then it has come to be better understood that civil war is waged
for the benefit of individuals who wish for their turn of power and
their pull at the public purse; and the successful leader spares his
opponent, not caring to establish a precedent which might prove so very
inconvenient to himself.
We were taken to see the garotte by the President, who took it out of
its little mahogany case, into which it was fitted like any other
surgical instrument. We noticed that it was rusty, and indeed it had
not been used for many months. It is not worth while to describe it.
Mexican law well administered is bad enough, not essentially unjust,
but hampered with endless quibbles and technicalities, quite justifying
the Spanish proverb, "_Mas vale una mala composicion que un buen
pleito_,"--a bad compromise is better than a good lawsuit. As things
stand now, the law of any case is the least item in the account, there
are so many ways of working upon judges and witnesses. Bribery first
and foremost; and--if that fails--personal intimidation, political
influence, private friendship, and the _compadrazgo_. Naturally, if you
have a lawsuit or are tried for a crime, you should lay a good
foundation. This is done by working upon the _Juez de primera
instancia_, who corresponds in some degree to the _Juge d'instruction_
in France. This functionary is wretchedly paid, so that a small sum is
acceptable to him; and, moreover, the records of the case, as tried by
him, form the basis of all future litigation, so that it is very bad
economy not to get him into proper order. If you do not, it will cost
you three times as much afterwards. If your suit is with a soldier or a
priest, the ordinary tribunals will not help you. These two
classes--the most influential in the community--have their _fuero_,
their special jurisdiction; and woe to the unfortunate civilian who
attacks them in their own courts!
Don Miguel Lerdo do Tejada, whose sense of humour occasionally peeps
out from among his statistics, remarks gravely that "the clergy has its
special legislation, which consists of the Sacred Volumes, the decision
of General and Provincial Councils, the Pontifical Decretals, and
doctrines of the Holy Fathers." Of what sort of justice is dealt out in
that court, one may form some faint idea.
One of our friends in Mexico had a house which was too large for him,
and in a moment of weakness he let part of it to a priest. Two years
afterwards, when we made his acquaintance, he was hard at work trying,
not to get his rent, he had given up that idea long before, but to get
the priest out. I believe that, eventually, he gave him something
handsome to take his departure.
I have often quoted Don Miguel Lerdo de Tejada, and shall do so again.
His statistics of the country for 1856 are given in a broad sheet, and
seem to be generally reliable. The annual balance-sheet of the country
he sums up in three lines--
Annual Expenditure . . . . . . 25,000,000 dollars.
Annual Revenue . . . . . . . . 15,000,000 dollars.
----------
Annual Deficit . . . . . . . . 10,000,000 dollars.
The President of the Ayuntamiento was a pleasant person to know, among
the dishonest, intriguing Mexican officials. He received but little pay
in return for a great deal of hard work; but he liked to be in office
for the opportunities it afforded him of improving the condition of the
poor of the city. It was a sight to see the prisoners crowd round him
as he entered the court. They all knew him, and it was quite evident
they all considered him as a friend. In what little can be done for the
ignorant and destitute under the unfavourable circumstances of the
country, Don Miguel has had a large share; but until an orderly
government, that is, a foreign one, succeeds to the present anarchy,
not very much can be done.
I mentioned the word "_compadrazgo_" a little way back. The thing
itself is curious, and quite novel to an Englishman of the present day.
The godfathers and godmothers of a child become, by their participation
in the ceremony, relations to one another and to the priest who
baptizes the child, and call one another ever afterwards _compadre_ and
_comadre_. Just such a relationship was once expressed by the word
"gossip," "God-sib," that is "akin in God." Gossip has quite
degenerated from its old meaning, and even "sib," though good English
in Chaucer's time, is now only to be found in provincial dialects; but
in German "sipp" still means "kin."
In Mexico this connexion obliges the compadres and comadres to
hospitality and honesty and all sorts of good offices towards one
another; and it is wonderful how conscientiously this obligation is
kept to, even by people who have no conscience at all for the rest of
the world. A man who will cheat his own father or his own son will keep
faith with his _compadre_. To such an extent does this influence become
mixed up with all sorts of affairs, and so important is it, that it is
necessary to count it among the things that tend to alter the course of
justice in the country.
The French have the words _compere_ and _commere_; and it is curious to
observe that the name of _compere_ is given to the confederate of the
juggler, who stands among the crowd, and slyly helps in the performance
of the trick.
We went one day to the Hospital of San Lazaro. I have mentioned the
word "_lepero_" as applied to the poor and idle class of half-caste
Mexicans. It is only a term of reproach, exactly corresponding to the
"_lazzarone_" of Naples, who resembles the Mexican lepers in his social
condition, and whose name implies the same thing; for, of course, Saint
Lazarus is the patron saint of lepers and foul beggars. There are some
few real lepers in Mexico, who are obliged by law to be shut up in this
hospital. We rather expected to see something like what one reads of
the treatment of lepers which prevailed in Europe until a few years
ago--shutting them up in dismal dens cut off from communication with
other human beings. We were agreeably disappointed. They were confined,
it is true, but in a spacious building, with court-yard and garden;
their nurses and attendants appeared to be very kind to them; and it
seems that many charitable people come to visit the inmates, and bring
them cigars and other small luxuries, to relieve the monotony of their
dismal lives. Some had their faces horribly distorted by the falling of
the corners of the eyes and mouth, and the disappearance of the
cartilage of the nose; and a few, in whom the disease had terminated in
a sort of gangrene, were frightful objects, with their features
scarcely distinguishable; but in the majority of cases the leprosy had
caused a gradual disappearance of the ends of the fingers and toes, and
even of the whole hands and feet. The limbs thus mutilated looked as
though the parts which were wanting had been amputated, and the wound
had quite healed over, but it is caused by a gradual absorption without
wound and without pain. As every one knows, leprosy of these kinds was
held until quite lately to be dangerously contagious; but, fortunately
for the poor creatures themselves, this is quite clearly proved to be
false, and the lepers are only shut up that they may have no children,
for the affection appears to be hereditary.
It was early one morning, when we were going out to breakfast at
Tisapan, that Don Juan recounted to us his experience of garrotted
malefactors sitting dead in their chairs in the great square across
which we were riding. "It was really almost enough to spoil a fellow's
breakfast," he added pathetically. Though an Englishman, and only
arrived in the country a few years before, Don Juan was as clever with
the lazo as most Mexicans, and could _colear_ a bull in great style.
Indeed, we had started early that morning in order to have time enough
to look at the bulls in the _potreros_--the great grass-meadows--that
lie for miles outside the city, and which are made immensely fertile by
flooding from time to time. Wherever we saw a bull in the distance, Don
Juan and his grand little horse _Pancho_ plunged over a bank and
through a gap, and we after him. No one ever leaps anything in this
country, indeed the form of the saddle puts it out of the question. One
or two bulls looked up as we entered the enclosure, and bolted into
other fields, pushing in among the thorns of the aloes which formed
close hedges of fixed bayonets round the meadows. At last Don Juan cut
off the retreat of an old bull, and galloping after him like mad, flung
the running loop of the lazo over his horns, at the same time winding
the other end round the pummel of his saddle. The bull was still
standing on all four legs, pulling with all its might against Pancho.
Galloping after him, so as to slacken the end of the lazo, we contrived
to transfer it from Don Juan's saddle to mine. Now my own horse
happened to be a little lame, and I was riding a poor little black
beast whose bones really seemed to rattle in his skin. Our
acquaintances in the Paseo had been quite facetious about him,
recommending us to be careful and not to smoke up against him, for fear
we should blow him over, and otherwise whetting their wit upon him. He
acquitted himself very creditably, however, and when the bull began to
pull against him, he leant over on the other side, as if he had been
galloping round a circus; and the bull could not move him an inch. It
was quite evident that it was not his first experiment. In the mean
time Don Juan had dropped the noose of my lazo just before the bull's
nose, and presently that animal incautiously put his foot into it, when
Don Juan whipped it up round his leg and went off at full gallop. My
little black horse knew perfectly well what had happened, though his
head was exactly in the opposite direction; and he tugged with all his
might, and leant over more than ever. The two lazos tightened with a
twang, as though they had been guitar-strings; and in a moment the
unfortunate bull was rolling with all his legs in the air, in the midst
of a whirlwind of dust. Having thus humiliated him we let him go, and
off he went at full speed. All this time the proprietor of the field
was tranquilly standing on a bank, looking on. Far from raging at us
for treating his property in this free and easy manner, he returned our
salutation when we rode up to him, and, addressing our sporting
countryman, said, "Well done, old fellow, come another day and try
again."
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